Review Summary: The best album of all time
4 of 8 thought this review was well writtenMetallica's debut is widely considered a classic in thrash metal, and not without reason. This revolutionalised metal, capitalising on Venom's style and making a new, faster, more aggressive form of music, with the lead single Hit The Lights. Cliff Burton, Kirk Hammet, James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich created, on this album, a masterpiece, despite taking a few Mustaine riffs here and there.
The song crafting is, for the most part, exceedingly solid. The riffs on display here are some of the best the band ever put out, especially the ones on The Four Horsemen. If there was ever a song to play and sing a long to at the same time, this is the one, as it is relatively simplistic but sounds so awesome. This song is the best on the album by a long way.
The bass instrumental by Cliff Burton, Anasthesia Pulling Teeth, is one of the best intrumentals in metal ever, and really does show off the talent of this man. His loss was a real tragedy, and this is his swansong, no matter what anyone will say about the songs that the band had on the following albums. This is where Cliff had his finest hour, not on To Live Is To Die or Orion.
The vocal work from James Hetfield is his most raw and intense style, with crazy shrieks here and there, and a lot of good singing from the man. This was before he went monotonous on Master Of Puppets and way before he sounded like a bag of *** on Load onwards (the worst album in the bands discography). This album was his crowning achievement... Not bad for saying it was also his first.
Metal Militia and Whiplash are the only two filler songs on here, being too New Wave Of British Heavy Metal influenced for my liking. That is not to say that they are bad songs, as in the context of the album they are great, it is just that the rest of the album is so far ahead of its time. Only one thrash album would ever top this for consistency, and that would be Overkills Horrorscope.
This album is the finest moment in Metallicas lifespan. Cant wait for their next album, congratulations Metallica
